The Elf King (37 page)

“
How do you know who we
are?” asked Qenn.

“
Or what we are doing?”
added Kandish.

“
What I know does not
matter, other than the fact that you are running out of time. I am
here to offer you what protection I can.” Lord Estrial removed a
staff from his gown and handed it to Qenn. It was long and narrow,
dull in shine, light in weight, and didn’t appear to have anything
special about it.

“
What is this for?” Qenn
asked curiously.

Terill’s stare turned
hard. “It was created by Elven magic. It is a power that will hold
what you cast to it. Use it in the
LifeWaters
. Find the Faerie creature
there and get power from it. In turn, use that against the
Mrenx Ku
.”

Kandish and Qenn shared a
dumbfounded look. More elves began to appear now behind Terill,
walking closer to them. Kamen and his men moved closer to Qenn and
Kandish.

“
I don’t under—” Qenn
began, but the other cut him short.

“
Whatever you bind to it,
will remain until you set it free. You will know when to use it,
Qenn.” He turned to the others and nodded solemnly. “It was nice to
meet all of you. You are all very brave. We owe you our gratitude.
You hold the world in your palms. Be strong.”

With a gesture of his hand,
the group walked back to their boat with no further questions.
Terill stood watching, a large group of Forest Elves standing
beside him, some waving, others merely staring with concern. The
boat was pushed back into the current, and all aboard watched the
elves until they were out of sight.

“
Even the Elves are worried
about us,” Kamen remarked, checking out Qenn’s staff before walking
to the bow once again.

Prevost and Kandish took
their turns as well, both mentioning that it appeared to be just a
normal looking stick they might find in the woods. And they both
agreed that they knew better, especially if it came from the Lord
of the Elves.

“
How will I know when to
use it?” Qenn said aloud, if only to himself. “How will I know how
to use it? I don’t have any magic. Maybe it was meant for you,
Kandish?”

She shook her head. “It was
meant for whom he gave it to, I think. You’ll just have to find a
way to unlock its power.”

Qenn sighed. “That’s a lot
to trust in.”

“
Trust in yourself.”
Prevost smiled. He left the two alone and walked back to stand with
Kamen Ode.

“
You have magic,” Qenn
stated to Kandish. “What does it feel like to use it?”

Kandish’s face turned sour.
“Unpleasant.”

Qenn decided not to press
the issue. Out of them all, she was the only one who might give him
some insight on how to use magic. And from what he gathered by her
expression, using magic was something he might never want to do.
But looking at the staff, he knew there would be a time for it. And
though he didn’t fully understand the staff, he was actually more
at ease now with it. He felt less vulnerable. He felt like he
belonged with the group.

“
It’s not a toy,” Kandish
whispered.

She must have seen the
smile on his face as he was looking over the staff. “I know.” He
went back to looking a little less excited.

The rest of the afternoon
came and went with no further interruptions as the sun sank below
the Shard Peaks, illuminating the sky in a purple wash. The night
sky slowly crept in, bringing with it clouds and a cool wind. Qenn,
Kandish, and Prevost camped out in their normal spots under the
tent spending most of their time looking at Qenn’s staff and making
idle talk about it, thinking aloud what possibilities that it could
do.

“
I would also be concerned
about what the magic would do to you in return, Qenn. That is
something to consider.” Kandish said with some sympathy.

“
Well, I’ll let you two
dwell on this by yourselves.” Prevost smiled, rose to his feet,
then wrapped himself in his coat behind them. Kamen was on first
watch, with another one of his men watching the rear. Everyone else
began to sleep.

Qenn sat close to Kandish.
The night was growing dark around them. There was very little light
to navigate. The mountains to their left appeared to be a black
curtain, and the woods to their right didn’t fare much lighter.
Once they saw a giant black bird sweep down into the water and
pluck something from it before disappearing back into the sky. The
bird was as big as their boat. It made them sit closer together,
moving more in the center under the tarp.

It was a while before Qenn
asked Kandish what was troubling him. “What did you mean, when you
said that magic always affects its user?” His voice was soft,
almost a whisper.

She took a moment to
respond, but when she did, she looked right at him. “By using it,
it attaches a piece of itself to you. A bonding, I guess. Maybe I
don’t know how to explain it. But I’ve seen it change
people.”

“
Is that why you don’t like
to use yours?” The look she gave him suggested that it was more
than that. They were quiet for a few minutes then.

“
Qenn, we are on this
together. We have a bond, I think.” She looked at him in short
intervals, looking away when she stopped to choose her
words.

“
The Seer told me things,
things that will happen, things that we need to make happen. She
told me that something bad was going to happen to you, that you
would need me. But I was not going to be able to help you. She said
that we would need to stick together to avoid any danger to each
other. We are connected, she said. Do you believe her?”

“
Don’t you?”

“
I do. You might not
believe me, but since I met you I’ve felt a connection.” She stared
at him now, seeing a mask of shadows. “The Seer told me that we
need to trust each other in order for us to succeed. I think she
meant me, because she knows that I don’t trust anyone. But she’s
right. You’re right. I need to trust again. I want to.”

“
But you’re scared. You’re
scared that I will see you the same way that everyone else did.”
Qenn reached over and held her hands. They were warm. “What I
already know about you, makes me want to know more about
you.”

He felt her hands quiver,
but didn’t realize she was crying until tears dropped on them.
“Kandish?”

“
Qenn,” she sobbed, “I
don’t want you to hate me, too.”

Qenn brushed his hands
across her cheeks, wiping the streams of tears away. He held her
face then with both hands, gently brushing back her hair. The tears
stopped then, and a few moments later she was able to talk again.
Qenn held her hands.

“
When I was a little girl,
my father began teaching me about potions. He was a failed
sorcerer, as he called it. But he knew a lot about it. He could
make a potion to heal anything but death, and he could make others
that would kill anything instantly. He had been using magic when he
had met my mother and tried teaching her as well. From what I hear,
she understood it far better than he. She died giving birth to me.
And when I was about five, we found out that I had been born with
magic. It was the effect of my mother’s usage. Somehow it was
transferred to me during the pregnancy. This delighted my father so
much. He spent hours every day trying to figure out my power and
what I could and could not do with it. I didn’t enjoy it sometimes,
but it made us close, and after losing my mom, I was really all he
had left.”

Qenn squeezed her hands,
his thumbs caressing in circles. He kept quiet, waiting for her to
finish.

“
And then one day we were
outside in the field and he wanted me to do something that I had
not tried yet. We stood between two trees. I was touching them
both. He wanted me to try to uproot them, to use my power to pluck
them out of the earth. The trees were big, strong. I tried and
couldn’t. He pushed me harder. I failed again. Then he started
yelling at me to do it. I remember that I was crying and just
wanted him to stop screaming at me. I just wanted to please him; I
just wanted him to leave me alone. Then all at once I felt my body
tingle and a heat surged through my body in a nauseating wave.
There was a flash of light. When I opened my eyes, he was dead. I
had killed him.”

She felt Qenn stop rubbing
her. She wanted to look away from him, but as dark as it was she
couldn’t see what he was thinking anyhow. But then she decided she
wanted to know. “What are you thinking, Qenn?”

His voice was soft. “I am
so sorry for you, Kandish. I don’t know what to say. It was an
accident, you know. You didn’t mean for it to happen that
way.”

“
When people learned what
had happened, I was called a witch and forced out of my town. I had
no place to go, no one would take me in. They burned my home to the
ground. Some of them hunted me like an animal. So I ran. I ran as
far as I could. But it didn’t seem to matter. Everywhere I went,
someone knew something about me. Someone was always trying to
ransom me, or use me in whatever way they could.”

She paused, smiling sadly,
before finishing. “I can kill people who have magic. Who would want
anything to do with me?”

“
I love you,” Qenn said
instantly. His heart ached for her. He felt so much sorrow for her,
all he wanted to do was for her to feel loved. So he said it. It
was the truth anyhow.

He squeezed her hands
again. “I want you to know, I will never leave you. I will never
abandon you.”

She tried to say his name,
but cried. She could not stop. She reached over and held him close,
feeling his arms wrap around her tight. It was a wall breaking
within her; they were words she never thought she’d hear
again.

Qenn held her until she
stopped shaking, though he was not sure if she had ever stopped
crying when she kissed his nose and rolled over, asking him to lay
close to her. He did so without hesitation.

Chapter 21

F
or two more days, Qenn sat next to Kandish and talked about
magic, feeling like he had no resolution. The questions were the
same, no matter how many times he asked them, no matter how
differently he worded them. Unfortunately, Kandish’s answers left
him unsatisfied. Qenn would have to wait for the power of the staff
to reveal itself, she said. Most magics were different from one
another, she said. The staff might let him know when it was time to
use it, she said again and again. There was nothing she could do to
help him. All she could do, was to warn him to be careful when he
did use it.

“
I just want to make sure
that I know what to do. I don’t want to fail. There is so much
depending on us.” Qenn spoke loud enough for them all to hear. No
one responded. They each drifted off to their own thoughts, keeping
quiet.

The Lyyn Forest had thinned
out and all but disappeared now. Plains stretched away on both
sides of the Spira, with short spans of scrub thickets and wooded
patches growing along the banks. The Shard Peaks were far off in
the distance, heavily covered with wispy clouds. Kamen told them
that they would be at Tannindell by nightfall. They would have to
find a guide in the city, someone who would be able to lead them
safely through the Pikes and then on into Creatia.

And hopefully back again,
Qenn thought.

It was nearly mid-afternoon
when the black smoke was spotted. Prevost alerted Kamen, pointing
straight ahead of them. It was only a few seconds before the rest
of them were looking northeast, still far in the distance, where a
series of black twisting lines snaked up into the clouds. Their
quiet moods turned for the worse. No one said anything for a few
moments. They kept their gaze directed for the distant
smoke.

“
The city is burning,”
Prevost said, stunned.

“
More-so than usual,” Kamen
added. “Something’s not right.”

Qenn turned to Kandish and
saw his own worry mirrored in her eyes. As she turned her attention
to him, she mouthed
Takers
. Qenn felt a cold chill
settle over him then. He assumed that the others already figured it
out by their moods: a mix of anger and fear. His slender fingers
clenched the staff even tighter.